GUILTY !!!

The tri­al of Adijia Palmer (o/c)Vybez Kartel has end­ed with the 11 per­son jury return­ing a ver­dict of Guilty against the accused. The Entertainer has been in jail for over two years pend­ing the out­come of this tri­al. Palmer was con­vict­ed for mur­der­ing Clive (Lizard) Williams. The pros­e­cu­tion alleged Williams was killed in a dis­pute over lost gun/​s. Kartel’s Attorneys have indi­cat­ed they will appeal the guilty ver­dict, as was to be expect­ed. There is also infor­ma­tion com­ing out of Jamaica that the Director of pub­lic Prosecution will be prof­fer­ing charges against one juror who alleged­ly approached the jury fore-per­son with an offer of $200.000 to vote to release the accused. We will talk more about this as more infor­ma­tion becomes available.

Kartel and his co-accused Shawn Campbell,Kahira Jones, Andre St John, were all found guilt as charged with the jury find­ing Shane Williams not guilty. This tri­al cre­at­ed a buzz , not just in Jamaica but in the Jamaican Diaspora. This was evi­dent on social media, where every­one felt at lib­er­ty to let their voic­es be heard. In these Blogs we argued that this was one of the very first time there has been so much incon­tro­vert­ible evi­dence against an accused, yet there was no corpse. It was not the first time an accused was found guilty in a mur­der case where no body was recov­ered. This cre­at­ed much hand wring­ing in social media, those want­i­ng a guilty ver­dict wor­ried about that fact in the case. Others want­i­ng an acquit­tal point­ed out there is no body,so there is no mur­der. There has been the usu­al igno­rant behav­ior from that fringe of the coun­try which defies log­ic. It seemed that the police were pre­pared this time. The jury is still out on whether this ver­dict will result in civ­il unrest as is cus­tom­ary when any­one from the under­world is placed in cus­tody. That speaks to the moral rot which has tak­en over our country.

In the end there did not need to be a body. The moun­tain of cir­cum­stan­tial evidence,including the words of the accused was enough to gain con­vic­tions against them.They nev­er quite chal­lenged the evi­dence put forth by the Prosecution. Reading what hap­pened in the court room dai­ly, I won­dered if his celebri­ty would allow him to wig­gle out of what I thought was a slam dunk case. Save and except for some alle­ga­tions of impro­pri­ety by police regard­ing a cell phone, the defense’s case appeared to be innu­en­dos, try­ing to cast doubt ‚alle­ga­tions of a frame up, but nev­er seri­ous­ly attempt­ing to indict the evi­dence pre­sent­ed by the state.

Those who want­ed an acquit­tal may want to hold their hors­es for awhile, in Jamaica any­thing is pos­si­ble. The Appeals court still gets to have a say. That court has nev­er seen a ver­dict it could just leave alone. I have con­sis­tent­ly point­ed to the Liberalism in Jamaican Judicial sys­tem, Jamaican Judges are large­ly prod­ucts of the University of the West Indies a well know far left lib­er­al insti­tu­tion. For now how­ev­er, Jamaicans who are tired of crime and vio­lence may down a cold one and heave a sigh of relief that for once the sys­tem worked. The sys­tem is bad­ly bro­ken, just not dead yet. Maybe, just maybe, it can be salvaged.

This is not a vic­to­ry for Clive Lizard Williams who clear­ly was no Saint. In fact Williams alleged­ly died because he lost Kartel’s gun. What Williams did, who he robbed or killed with that gun, we may nev­er know. This was a vic­to­ry for the few Jamaicans who still believe in the val­ue of God and coun­try, hard work and sac­ri­fice , edu­ca­tion and the rule of law, decen­cy and hon­est, good com­mu­ni­ties and good friends. It is a vic­to­ry for the Jamaicans who yearn for the inno­cence of yes­ter­year, when neigh­bors looked out for neigh­bors. When every­one raised every­one’s chil­dren, when peo­ple were secure in their right to enjoy their coun­try. Whenever, wher­ev­er, how­ev­er, and with whomev­er they chose. That Jamaica may be only a mem­o­ry on the dis­tant hori­zon in the rear-view mir­ror of time, but for one moment, just once more, these nos­tal­gic Jamaicans may dream of a time when their coun­try was theirs, just this once.….